Clash of the Titans (1981)

Welcome to my first official post for my Passion blog!

For the first film that I am discussing, I started off with Clash of the Titans (1981).  

I told a few people that I was watching this movie and their first reaction was “I love that movie” but they were confused with the recent remake of the movie of the same title, released in 2010. Despite that, here is my opinion and thoughts while watching Clash of the Titans (released in 1981!)

Before starting the film I already knew of Perseus and his story.  I had heard that there were some ~changes~ made to the myth to fit the film, which is expected because most films seem to expand the barriers of whatever it was based off of but I didn’t know how much and boy did they change a lot.  

One thing that bothered me in the original myth was the structure of it and how Perseus finding Andromeda seemed unimportant to the plot for me.  I felt Andromeda could have easily been cut out or if Perseus just left her there it would not have affected the actual story itself, he just wouldn’t have a girlfriend. So I did appreciate how in the film they managed to switch it up so Andromeda’s role in the story actually made sense given the context of the rest of the myth.  However, because of the switch up, Perseus’s motivation for doing everything changed and I haven’t decided if I like it or not. In the myth, Perseus goes on his adventure with the intention of protecting his mother, Danae. However, in Clash of the Titans, he is romantically driven, intending on saving Andromeda. For me, I like the idea of him going above and beyond for his mother but realistically I think that the plot of the movie makes more sense if Andromeda is his drive.

Not only did Perseus’s mother play a small role but so was the rest of his family. I found it upsetting that Athena and Hermes weren’t the ones to directly help Perseus go on his quest.  While Athena does help, it was a group of major gods looking over Perseus and Hermes is completely just cut from the film. In the myth I thought it was cute that Hermes and Athena helped him because they are technically all siblings.  

Some other interesting changes made, probably the most irritating to me, was Bubo, Athena’s owl.  I genuinely laughed when I first saw this. Given the time period, there is no reason that there should be robots appearing and somehow Bubo exists.  I thought that Bubo was ridiculous when Athena first mentions the idea, but then when Perseus is able to understand Bubo… I think we have all seen something very similar (cough cough R2-D2).  I found the inclusion of Bubo was for the purpose of just having a robot and because it’s “cool” but not because it makes sense or contributes positively to the story. 

I hope you enjoyed my rant about Clash of the Titans.  For my “review” of the movie I would rate 3/10. I think I may have been a little bit harsh on the grading but Bubo definitely lowered the rating a few points so please don’t come after me if you love this film.  Also Please tell me what you liked or didn’t like about the movie!